whirlwinds and tours

Back on the East Coast. Back to bustling cities, temperate weather and XXXX Beer. Another ride on the backpacker superhighway. This time, though, I'll be a passenger. A lowly dependent. Completely at the mercy of bus timetables, train stations, and airport ETDs.

Brisbane is now the only place in Australia I've visited twice. It's comfortably familiar. I'm even staying at the same hostel. There's a definite advantage to traveling somewhere you've already been. I know where and when to get free internet, the cheapest food, a bus ticket, and a refreshing swim (the only inner-city beach in Australia). I was even able to score free breakfast the past two days from my hostel's communal food shelf. Scrambled eggs with cheese and peppers, and two egg and cheese sandwiches on toast. True rarities in the world of hostel free-food shelves. Nothing like glorious triumph before most people have woken up.

I left Darwin late Monday night. My flight left at two in the morning amid rainstorms and lightning. Par for the course up there. Darwin was a nice little tropical city. I would've liked to have spent more than two nights there, but not much longer than that. It reminded me of Cairns, but with a few more stories on its buildings and a higher local-to-backpacker ratio.

Darwin has the unique distinction of being one of the few cities in the world to be destroyed twice. Not an attribute most cities would revel in, but Australia is a funny place, and the Northern Territory is certainly the crazy uncle of all the Australian states. It's like the deep south in the US, except without all the religion.

The first time was in 1942 when a surprise Japanese bombing pulled Australia into WWII. The number of bombs dropped and the resulting damage was far greater than that at Pearl Harbour. It happened just a few days after Valentine's Day. Darwin was destroyed again in 1974 when Cyclone Tracy ripped through the city with winds strong enough to break all the wind-force gauges. According to the damage, they likely reached over 250 km/h. The Cyclone hit during the early hours of Christmas morning. If ever there was a people wary of their holidays, it would be Darwinians. I have to imagine that New Year's Eve, St. Patrick's Day and Easter are tenuous mixtures of cautious celebration and nervous glances skyward.

I leave Brisbane tomorrow for Byron Bay and the Blues Festival, which I can only be disappointed by since every Australian I've met has told me it's the single most epic event in Australia. Perhaps the world. Anything short of an End of Days celebration will be a letdown. Some good music would be nice, too.

The past ten days have been a major highlight of my time here. I toured around the Red Center (Uluru NP, Kata Tjuta NP, King's Canyon), Kakadu and Litchfield NPs, and everywhere between (Devils Marbles, Katherine Gorge). The three trips were separate tours with groups ranging from 11-18 people. Each group was made up of different people each time, but there were usually a few familiar faces from the previous tour. We slept in tents every night, and always woke up early enough to see the sun rise. There were even two nights where I got to sleep outside under the stars in a sleeping bag. That was a great experience, even though massive spiders were constantly crawling through my thoughts.

Highlights were a sunrise and sunset at Ayers Rock, a crocodile boat tour where we saw a 4-5 meter giant (it rocked the boat with its tail and gave us all a scare), and too many waterfalls and swimming holes to remember. I've posted two hefty photo albums on facebook for anyone interested in perusing.

Another notable highlight was the food: it was inclusive, all-you-can-eat, and damn good cookin. Every night we were treated to a BBQ of Kangaroo steaks, Buffalo sausages, or beef schnitzels. My physique has taken a bit of a hit, but it was well worth it. Now back to whatever is on sale at Coles.

I'll check back in when I get to Sydney after the Blues Fest. I'll spend two nights there before flying out for New Zealand. After five weeks in New Zealand, I make a brief stop in LA and then it's back home on May 19th. Crazy to think my time in Australia is almost over. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the family and catching up with everyone, but not so much excited about leaving this place.

In more disappointing news, I'll almost certainly miss Opening Day and the first Sox-Yanks series of the season. As far as bummers go, that ranks pretty high. At least the baseball season is long.

My prediction: Sox 27, Yanks 0. Scutaro hits three home runs and Beckett strikes out 22.

Go Sox.